“ Public opinion” refers to the attitudes of people about a specific issue of the EU. Historically, european public opinion has shown towards european institutions a "permissive consensus", term which was proposed by Easton . This implied that negotiations within the EU only were  public after the commitments reached by the EU political elites. This permissive consensus has been breaking down since the 90s and, especially since the economic crisis.

Nowadays, we can find 4 groups of individuals based on their support for the EU and the integration process:

1) Euro-enthusiasts:  They support the integration process and the EU.

2) Euro-pragmatism: They give their support to the EU, but neither oppose nor support the integration process.

3) Euro-scepticism: They give their support to the integration process but oppose many of the current objectives of the integration process.

4) Anti-Europeans: They oppose both the EU and the integration process.

The explanatory factors of support for the EU may be related to the general evaluation of the european policies, socio-demographic or specific factors.

In order to deepen more about public opinion, an explanatory presentation by Professor Javier Arregui is attached and the link to the Eurobarometer website that contains many statistics related to European public opinion.

Presentation: /documents/2425466/2433061/Opini%C3%B3+P%C3%BAblica/e8da3590-d67c-a2a7-48f5-c54d6a336f16

Eurobarometer: http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm